


In Frodo's Hands - pt 1

by Mews1945



Category: Lord of the Rings - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-25
Updated: 2005-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-08 02:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mews1945/pseuds/Mews1945
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine year old Pippin Took visits Bag End and gets to know his cousin Frodo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Frodo's Hands - pt 1

"Be a good lad, Peregrin, and mind what Cousin Frodo tells you. Mama and I will come for you early tomorrow afternoon."

My Da wants to be gone. I am just nine, but I can hear it in his voice. I don't understand what is meant by a funeral, but he and Mama have been whispering about it for days. I only know that I am too young to be taken with them, and so I am to be left here, with my cousin Frodo Baggins, who I hardly know, for a day and a night. He is coming now, through the green door of Bag End. I hardly look at him before I turn to my Da, feeling shy and frightened, and not at all like myself.

"Can't I go with you?' I whisper this, my cupped hands hiding my lips because I do not want Cousin Frodo to hear and perhaps be angry that I do not want to stay with him.

Da frowns, his thundery frown, that is quite frightening to any lad on its receiving end. I hunch my shoulders, expecting a scolding.

"No, Pippin," he says, his voice surprisingly mild. "Not this time. Now be good." And he pats my head, nods to Cousin Frodo, turns, and strides back to the gate and through, closing it behind him. Climbing into the carriage, he clucks to the pony and in only a moment, he is gone from sight, taking my mama with him.

I feel cast-off and lonely as I turn to look up at my tall cousin who has come to stand behind me. I have not seen him for over a year, which is a long time to a Hobbitlad of only nine summers.

I remember Cousin Bilbo, and I expect this Baggins to look like him, sort of rounded and comfortable and red-cheeked. Instead, I look up into a face that more closely resembles my own, which is more pointy and sharp-nosed. Cousin Frodo's skin is the colour of the creamy milk that Mama pours into my cup in the mornings, and his eyes are very bright and very blue, and as they look at me, they are most grave, as though he is as unsure of me as I of him.

"Well, lad," he says, and stops, and I think he is wondering what to say to me. Perhaps Cousin Frodo doesn't know very many children? He clears his throat. "Well, Pippin, shall we go in? I am making bread. Would you like to help?"

I am surprised. At home, no one wants me to be in the kitchen at all. It quite saddens me, really, because there are so many interesting things in a kitchen, so many lovely places to explore, and such food to sample. I still don't understand why everyone got so angry with me when I went into the kitchen at home and got out all the pots and filled them with water, to see how much they would hold before they overflowed. I only spilled a bit of water. And I only wanted to see if flour would look like snow if it were thrown in handfuls into the air. I had only seen snow once. How was I to know that flour and water make paste when mixed on the floor? I was sent to my room without tea, and there was a lovely big apple tart that day, too. It seemed altogether unfair.

Cousin Frodo is waiting, his head tilted at a curious angle as I am recalling that most unhappy day. I think I see a smile tug at his mouth, but his eyes are still very serious, and I think he could get very angry, very quickly, if I should make a mistake of that kind in his kitchen. Perhaps Cousin Bilbo will protect me.

"Will Cousin Bilbo help too?" I ask as politely as may be.

"Bilbo has gone to Michel Delving and will not return before tomorrow noon. Well, Pippin? What is your answer? I must go and knead the dough soon, so that I can make the loaves and let them rise before baking. Will you help me?"

Still uncertain, but resigned to my fate, I nod, and he answers my nod with a decided one of his own, reaches down, and takes my hand to lead me inside.

Da's hands are large and very strong and square-shaped, with long fingers and callouses from pony reins. Mama's hands are smaller and sort of oval-shaped, and the palms are soft as cushions, and her fingernails are longer than Da's and rubbed to a shine with a special cloth she keeps on her dressing table. To my surprise, Cousin Frodo's hands are near as small as my mama's hands, and there are no callouses on his palm, which is smooth and warm, but his hand feels strong, like Da's, and it closes around my small, sun-browned, sticky hand in a grip that is neither too lax, nor too tight, but firm and comforting.

"Gracious, Pippin, what have you been handling?" He looks down at me, his eyebrows drawing together, wrinkling his forehead. "You're as sticky as a jam pot."

I duck my head, wishing to pull my hand away, my cheeks very warm of a sudden. Mama had given me a pear in the carriage and the sweet juice had run over my hands as I ate it. I had tossed the core away at the roadside and licked the juice away, but some still remains on my fingers.

"Sorry," I whisper.

"Not to worry." My cousin looks down at me and smiles for the first time, and I think of how the sun will come out on a cloudy day and suddenly everything is bright and warm. I can feel my whole self sort of sigh, and I smile back.

"First, we must wash your hands, and mine as well," Cousin Frodo says firmly.

He leads me inside Bag End, into a small room inside the round green door, where there stands a coat rack, alongside a table piled with books at one end, with a candlestand on the other end and a flat silver dish where a letter in an envelope rests. The mat is rough and brushy as we wipe the dust from our feet, but the floor is cool and smooth when we step onto it. Sun makes pools of light beneath the round windows. There is no sound from anywhere inside the smial. I am not used to such quiet, and feel the urge to shout just to break it. I close my lips together quite tightly.

"Come along," my cousin says, tugging a bit at my hand, and I follow him down the curving corridor that leads into a rather large, sunny kitchen where a long, well-scrubbed wooden table sits in the middle, with chairs around it, and there are many cupboards lining the walls. All their doors and drawers are shut and my mind begins at once to itch with curiosity to see what is behind all those doors. I put my hands firmly behind my back.

On the table sits a yellow crockery bowl with a white cloth covering its top, and beside it sits a small pitcher and a basket that holds apples and pears, green and gold and red. The fire crackles in the black stove that squats in one corner, and another small fire burns in the fireplace beneath a humming teakettle hung on a crane. The air smells of apples and yeast.

I know about yeast. Once I put a whole jar of some brownish stuff I had found in the pantry into a bowl of water to see what would happen. Foam happened, lots of foam that bubbled over the bowl onto the table and onto the floor, and kept on foaming whilst I tried to sop it up with a dishtowel that lay on the pastry board. Cook screamed when she saw it. the scullery maidens ran to and fro, gathering all the towels and cloths they could find to mop up the mess. Mama was sad. Da was angry. I was sent to my room without supper.

"Here we are." Cousin Frodo leads me across the room, around the table, to a smaller, narrow table beneath the window, where a basin sits, and a towel is hung from a wooden bar fastened to the wall. Beside the basin is a large pitcher filled with water, I suppose, and a small brown dish that is filled with soft white soap.

Cousin Frodo releases my hand in order to fetch a small stepstool from the corner and set it in front of the table, then pours water from the pitcher into the basin. He lifts me carefully, his hands warm and strong on my waist, and stands me before him on the stool so that I can reach the basin.

"You first," he says. "Be very thorough, Pippin. It is important to be thorough in all you do. And to be strictly clean in one's kitchen."

"Yes, cousin." Everyone is always telling me to do things, and how to do things, and it becomes tiresome because I know they don't expect me to listen, or to do it right anyhow. But somehow I know that Cousin Frodo expects no less of me than he is asking. He does not speak to me as an adult Hobbit to a child, but as one Hobbit of sense to another. It makes me stand straighter and look at my sticky, grimy hands and make a face. It makes me want to earn another of his smiles.

The water is cool, but not cold. I dip my hands, then scoop up a bit of the soap with my fingers. It is cold and slippery, and smells of lavender, and it turns to white foam very quickly as I rub my hands together, washing them as thoroughly as I can, determined to give Cousin Frodo no cause for disappointment.

"That will do," he says. "Hold out your hands."

I obey and watch as he pours clean water from the pitcher over my hands, rinsing away the soap. Finished, he gives me the towel and I rub my hands dry and hold them up to inspect them. Cousin Frodo inspects them too, and nods, with another smile that makes me feel warm and happy inside.

He lifts me down from the stool and I stand aside, watching as he washes his own hands, taking quite as much care as I had taken with mine, and dries them, before he hangs the towel up neatly.

He moves the stool to the tableside and lifts me up to stand on it again. Fetching a crock from a cupboard, he opens it to reveal flour, and sprinkles some of that onto the table, using the palm of his hand to spread it out as I stare, fascinated but afraid to question him.

"This will keep the dough from sticking to the table," he explains.

"Oh." I watch him uncover the bowl, and turn out the large white ball of dough it contains onto the floury table. He pats it a bit until it flattens just a little, and then sprinkles the top with more flour, then he looks at me, raising one of his dark brows.

"Would you like to try kneading it, Pippin?"

I nod, wondering if I will do something wrong that will make him angry and then he will scold or send me away to a corner in disgrace. I am so often in disgrace, at home.

He steps behind me, encircles me with his arms, and takes my small hands in his warm, soft grip, guiding them to rest on the giving top of the dough. His sleeves are rolled up on his arms, and I can see the small knobs of bones sticking out at his wrists, under the white skin. My back rests against his chest, and I feel the slow rise and fall of his breathing. His breath tickles the curls at the side of my neck and by my ear, and it smells of tea and pipeweed and strawberry jam. There is a scent of soap from his skin.

"Press here, with the heels of your hands," he instructs me, and I laugh because it is funny to think that my hands have heels. Cousin Frodo gives a soft, purry kind of chuckle. He shows me how to flatten the dough at one side, then to fold it and push it away from me. His hands are very gentle, moving mine, teaching me, and soon I am sure of the rhythm of this kneading of bread. He moves his hands from mine then, and simply stands with me, with one hand lightly on my shoulder, and after a moment, the other hand comes up and touches my cheek, very very softly, like the brush of dandelion floss.

"That's good, Pippin," he says. "You learn quickly."

I feel this is praise indeed, and I blink and suck in my lip and bite it, because for some reason, tears sting in my eyes, and I fear I will shame myself by sniveling, for which I have been teased in the past by the bigger lads. My hands and arms are tiring, but I would not complain or stop for all of the Tookland, until my cousin tells me that I am finished with my task.

Cousin Frodo's hands come to rest on mine again, and he presses them gently and says, "That's done, then. Now I'll cut it in half and shape it into loaves, ready for the oven, and then it must rise again for a while before we bake it."

"Shall I move now?" I ask, unwilling to be in his way, but he shakes his head and smiles. "No, you are quite all right as you are."

So I lean on the table and watch as he takes a bright, sharp knife and cuts the dough across into two pieces, then those strong, nimble hands move quickly to shape the lumps into smooth, round loaves, which he places on a baking pan and covers again with the white cloth.

"There," he says. "Now a wash up and a wipe for the table, and we'll have our tea, all right?"

"Yes, cousin. Shall I help?" I would like it if Cousin Frodo would lift me down again, but I am really able to step down from the stool on my own, and I do so, ready to drag it back to the basin, where I can help with the washing up. My hands are a bit sticky and floury and need another wash as well.

"Suppose we wash our hands, and then I will wash the dishes and you can dry them? Will that suit?"

"Yes, cousin, it will suit very well."

Cousin Frodo chuckles again. "You are a polite lad, aren't you?"

I have been told so many times that I am rude that I do not know quite how to answer this, so I nod again and say, "I wish to be, but I am not, always."

"I see. Well, one is sometimes unsure of the polite thing. When in doubt, kindness is key, Pippin."

I nod again, because I am not entirely sure of what this means, but I do wish to be polite, as I said.

When I am at home, I am expected to make my bed, to put away my toys, and to dust the tables in the parlor every day. These are my chores and I do them usually only because Mama and Da scold and nag me. Here, I am quite willing to stand by my cousin's side as he carefully, thoroughly washes each piece of crockery, each spoon and knife, and rinses it, before handing it to me to be dried with the linen towel he gave me to use.

While he works, he tells me a tale of an Elven lady and her lord, and their adventure in the great forest called Mirkwood. It is very exciting and filled with danger and many acts of courage by the lady and her lord, and before I know it, the work is all finished, and Cousin Frodo makes tea with hot water from the old teakettle, and we have it with buttered scones, sitting comfortably together at the table, which has been wiped and freshly scrubbed clean.

I tell him about my books and my collection of pretty stones, and the twigs and cocoons I find by the creek, and about my pony, Apple. I tell him about my unhappy day, when I made Cook so angry, and my cousin laughs when I tell him about the flour that turned into paste when it fell into the water on the floor.

"I am always in trouble," I confess. "I make so many mistakes, though I don't mean to do wrong, cousin, honestly."

"Of course you don't," Cousin Frodo agrees. "You are young and curious, quite curious for a hobbit. Making mistakes is not such a terrible thing. You must learn from them, that's all, and try not to repeat them."

I nod, as I am quite in agreement with this, and he is looking at me so kindly that I believe he will understand, and not be impatient with me for my curiosity, and so I ask, "Cousin Frodo, why do you have so many cupboards and drawers when there are only the two of you living at Bag End? What can you possibly find to keep in them all?"

Cousin Frodo blinks, and then smiles again, and stands up. Taking my hand,he leads me over to one of the cupboards that sits beside the washing-up table. He opens the large drawer in the cupboard, displaying a jumble of many things, and says, "Let's see, shall we? We can explore a drawer or cupboard each time you visit if you like."

Somewhat timidly, I reach in and begin to look over the things in the drawer, inspecting them one by one. There are balls of string and thin wire in a loop. There are buttons of all kinds in a little wooden box that I open. When I run my fingers through the buttons, they shift and slide against each other with small clicking sounds. There are pins on papers, candles tied in a bundle, flints and a little book that Cousin Frodo picks up with a smile.

"I'd lost that and didn't know where to look for it. A good thing we decided to explore. You go ahead and look all you like whilst I put the bread into the oven."

I look through all the things in the drawer and place them back as I found them, except for a little wooden ball, clean and polished, that I pick up and turn in my hands, liking the way it feels. Cousin Frodo slides the bread into the oven, closes the door, and comes to look at what I have found.

"That was mine when I was about your age," he says, touching it softly with the tip of one finger. I notice that his nails are bitten painfully short. He closes my hand around the ball.

"You may keep it," he says. "When you roll it across a wooden floor, it makes the most delightful rumble."

"Thank you, cousin," I stammer, surprised and grateful. "It's beautiful."

"Yes, yes it is." My cousin touches the ball once more and for a moment his eyes cloud with a sorrow so deep it makes my own eyes sting again with tears, though I do not know why.

He straightens his back and smiles down at me, a smile not quite so bright as the others he's given me, but I am glad to see it.

"Well, now, let's go into the garden while the bread bakes, shall we? We can take my book and I'll read you a story before dinner."

If I were at home, I would want to run around, or ride, or search for cocoons by the stream, or dig worms from the garden, or turn over stones to see the curious bugs that hide underneath. Here, it is just nice to sit with Cousin Frodo on the grass beneath a tree, with the many flowers nodding all round and the bees droning like a lullaby in the afternoon neat.

Cousin Frodo's voice, reading to me, is soft and low. After a moment, I feel very tired, and I creep closer to him and lean against his side. He looks down at me with a bit of surprise, and then one of his lovely smiles, and puts his arm around me quite cozily. His strong, gentle hand strokes my curls as he continues to read, whist my eyes close now and then and I doze, knowing that I am welcomed and safe, here at Bag End, in Frodo's hands.

End 


End file.
